


Motherhood

by PrincessBethoc



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s01e09 The Returned Man, Family, Love, Motherhood, Rejection, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-23 02:50:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17072078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincessBethoc/pseuds/PrincessBethoc
Summary: “You’re not my mother, Zelda, so stop acting like you are!”It’s Sabrina’s voice that rings in Zelda’s head. The words, though fundamentally accurate, burn like acid down her spine. Even the sting of a lash to her back cannot detract from that sickening sensation.





	Motherhood

“You’re not my mother, Zelda, so stop acting like you are!”

It’s Sabrina’s voice that rings in Zelda’s head. The words, though fundamentally accurate, burn like acid down her spine. Even the sting of a lash to her back cannot detract from that sickening sensation.

There’s a venom there – however impulsive and temporary it might have been – that Zelda can never unhear. A resentment, an ignorance of every effort she has made to raise her niece to be as normal a young witch as possible, given the circumstances.

And Zelda is far from perfect. Zelda Spellman expects perfection, and she expects it more from herself than from anyone else, but she will never dare to declare herself perfect. Infallible. Faultless. She does her best but she’s flesh and blood, and therefore she is made of mistakes, some of them barely forgivable.

In the most traditional sense of the word, Zelda is not Sabrina’s mother. She did not carry the girl or give birth to her. But Zelda loves Sabrina no less than Diana did; indeed, she cannot believe herself capable of loving anyone more than she loves Sabrina. That Sabrina can question that cuts through Zelda like a blunt knife hacking at her bones. It means that her efforts were not enough.

Sabrina has been Zelda’s responsibility from the very moment she was left an orphan. Between Hilda’s particular brand of affectionate optimism and Zelda’s loving but stern discipline, she honestly believes they have brought Sabrina up to the best of their ability. Whether or not that is good enough is another matter entirely.

Of course, there have been occasions they have miscalculated and could have – should have – handled differently. They make mistakes, as every parent does. And Sabrina’s inherited righteousness and obstinance only serve to make their task that much more difficult.

To take Sabrina in the first place had been a poorly judged decision. How Zelda ever believed herself capable of bringing up her niece is now beyond her. It was foolish and arrogant and selfish not to allow Diana’s family to raise her. Every catastrophe of recent weeks may have been avoided.

Or perhaps not. Zelda had, after all, bore witness as Edward promised Sabrina to the Dark Lord. It’s one of her more reprehensible decisions; her only comfort is that her stupidity was equalled by her sister when she witnessed Sabrina’s Catholic baptism, at Diana’s request.

As the skin across her shoulder blades screams in protest, a voice in the back of her heart reminds her that love is the catalyst here. Not arrogance or foolishness or selfishness, but love. Irritatingly, that voice sounds suspiciously like Hilda’s. Why is it that the voice of compassion is always Hilda’s?

It was love that had urged her to give Sabrina a home. Love guides every single thing Zelda does for Sabrina, even those things Sabrina most deeply resents. A love for Sabrina as true and as strong as any mother’s is the very lifeblood of all she does, whether she’s right or wrong or simply muddling along as best she can.

But Zelda Spellman is not Sabrina’s mother, and she must stop acting like she is.

Who else will act as a mother to Sabrina, though? Who else knows Sabrina well enough to take that on? Who else has the discipline and devotion in them to endure the endless torrent of destruction and chaos that comes with loving Sabrina Spellman?

Nobody can. Nobody but Zelda and Hilda. Even they can do it only if they act as one, as two very different parts of a single entity. Sabrina Spellman needs a mother. She always will.

It’s only as Hilda stops Zelda’s furious hand and takes her in her arms that it dawns on Zelda: it does not matter that Zelda is not Sabrina’s mother – she must never stop acting like she is.


End file.
